The most programs are just sending commands like (play track nr. xth) to
your cdrom. There is no read for reading out the data and sending it the
soundcard. The cable is like a bypass.
It works, unless you do not need to grap something, or you have no cable
connected.
There shouldnt occur more problems if a program reads the audio-data
into the memory first and play it afterwards on the audiocard. It is
like playing a wavefile from your harddislk (someone mentioned
xmms-cdread here).
Hope you'll find what you need.
ciao
Walde